Therapeutic Questions
by BonesBird
Summary: Erika Hernandez is asked some awkward questions by her son, and has to think about how to answer them. SassCaptains pairing. OC character included.


**SO. Tonight my drabble went more than a little over the limit, and therefore it is the time for a oneshot. I haven't posted a oneshot on here first for a long time, it normally goes on AO3, but I'm in this mood today. Prompt is included.**

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**"We can't see them, we can't touch them. But they're there all right. A million shadows of human emotion. We've just got to learn to live with them." _Jack Harkness 'Torchwood'_**

Erika was far too used to having days on her own, and she never liked it. So Henry stopping by after work had been really nice for her. They had chatted about his current rotation for medical school, and she'd shared what she could of the situation she was currently dealing with in Starfleet. Henry, clearly, had had something on his mind ever since he'd arrived, and she was just waiting on him declaring what it is. "You know every day I feel everything that you and dad live with." Oh, boy. This was going to be hard. She didn't speak about what she'd dealt with very often. "I deal with vets all the time, they're broken, and hurt, and messed up and I wonder how you two have survived it?" He asked, and it just meant Erika had to think.

The Orions, the war, Jon's posting to Andoria, her position as head of Starfleet Communications, then as Chief of Staff. Through marriage, three pregnancies, two births and two thirds of her life, of his two. She was about to hit 80 years old and they'd known each other since she was 24 years old, No matter the time, the length, they had been together. "We had each other, he and I." She had depended on Jonathan so much, and now more than 50 years after they'd met she still depended on him. They needed each other. She knew she could live without him, and he could live without her. But neither of them wanted to. They had then created their family together, and that had played into how they survived. Henry and his sister had certainly seen her through the only year apart she and Jon had had since leaving their ships. "Later we had you and your sister too."

"Mom." Henry was clearly not going to accept her woolly answer, and he was probably right to push her on it. She needed to be pushed into this conversation.

"Your dad and I always had a dedication to duty, to Earth. There are hundreds of shadows of emotion and pain we have to live with, but he and I accepted it." They had always wanted to put Earth first. Right from when they first met. Even now they were doing their duties. Jon as President, she as Starfleet Chief of Staff. She was glad her kids stayed away. "Believe me we're glad both you and Bunny decided to stay on Earth." That was an understatement. When Henry had decided on medical school, considering Serena was already in engineering school, she and Jon had gone on a long, private dinner date. Well as private as they could have with a security detail around them.

"How did people in your positions decide to have a family anyway?" That was a good question that she didn't know how to answer.

So she shook her head with a laugh, that was a long, long story that she wasn't sure she had ever spoken about it to anyone but Veronica, considering she hadn't even passed her thought process by Jon. "I was kind of against it, for a very long time. Your dad always wanted kids though. I was just coming around to the idea for the second time when we found out about Bunny."

"The second time?" Henry asked, clearly picking up on that phrasing. She couldn't hide anything from her little boy these days. Not that Henry was that little anymore. In fact he was almost the same height as Jon, and therefore towered over his mother.

"You had an older sibling, older than Bunny that is, back when dad and I were both Commanders. But we lost the baby." Had they ever mentioned their first baby to either of the kids? Probably not, but she did now. She and Jon had two beautiful children now, one of whom was happily creating her own family. So losing the baby hadn't been the worst tragedy of her life. "After that we had other things on our minds until Bunny." Their daughter had turned out to show up just in time for her to not back out of the decision she'd made.

Henry burst out laughing, for some reason something almost everyone did when she or Jon referred to their eldest by her childhood nickname. "She hates that you and dad still call her that."

"I know. It's not going to stop me though." She laughed and sat back again. "Dad should be home soon. I had all day, I should make him dinner." She patted her son on the leg and laughed. All of a sudden remembering when she could hold him in both arms. Now he was 25 years old and so very professional. That was a scary thought too. She'd had to live through a lot in her life, but her family made it all worthwhile.


End file.
